Stop Sounding Desperate: Use THIS Advance Technique to Close Deals Confidently Feat. Vishen Lakhiani

We will just kind of rock and roll into this, and I'll give you some background. We'll get to Q and A and then I'll throw something at you at the end. So asking asked for the top 10 greatest negotiation responses. Number one is now bad time to talk. Now I'm going to dig somewhat into why you want to get people to say no versus saying yes. And there's a million reasons for that also. But I will tell you an initial indicator in my view, because Dan talked before about if somebody says, hey, I want to talk to you about something that's mutually beneficial, that's an indicator, a behavior of a half. Hard, annoying, lame, and frustrating. Dan's come to recognize that, and it immediately turns them off. We're actually developing, within my company, we've developed this. We get specific profiles of what do halves say, what's an indicator of a half, and why you should want to walk away as soon as possible nicely. The last impression is lasting impression. But if you got a few minutes to talk is one of those things. So, I mean, how long is a few minutes? When somebody said to you, have you got a few minutes to talk? When was it ever actually less than 5, which is a definition of a few. Right. So it's now bad time to talk. In place of that, why is that one of our top 10 lines? There's only one of two answers. And this is why Howard asked me to do a fill in a blank, so you could take notes if you wanted to, to write it down. Because clearly, if you write something down, you're more focused and you're more likely to retain it. It's an accelerator of learning. So there's only two answers you ever get. If it's now a bad time to talk, one of them is hesitation. And they say, why? No, no, it's never a bad time to talk. Go ahead. What do you got when someone responds like that? You've got 1,000% of their focus, which is why you called for in the first place. Their focus, their attention. As Dan said, you got their attention. Now, keeping their attention is a secondary issue, but you've got their attention. Now. What happens when you say, have you got a few minutes to talk? Well, they think, how long is a few minutes? What do you want to talk about? When's my next appointment? That's what goes through people's minds. When you say, have you got a few minutes to talk? What does that mean? You do not have their attention. You just blew the first seven seconds by clouding their brain. With those thoughts. So it's now a bad time to talk. They stop, they clear their head and they go, no, what do you got? Or they say, yeah, it is a bad time to talk, but I can Talk Tuesday at 1. Now you just got an appointment for their focus and their attention, which is what you were after in the first place. That's what we say, that's what we get over and over again. I remember seeing this come up in a thread on LinkedIn once and somebody on LinkedIn, the level of discussion in there of people clinging to their own beliefs, someone wrote, well, I don't want to say, is now a bad time to talk? Because what do you do if they say yes? My thought is, do you really want to talk to somebody who says yes to that? If they're willing to say yes, now is a bad time to talk. You want to keep talking, think about how stupid that is. So it's now bad time to talk. Any of you, that from this point forward, don't at least experiment with this, that loss is on you. I'm sorry, I'm blunt. All right, so extending. I never ask anybody if it's a good idea. We consistently ask over and over, is this a ridiculous idea? Also will begin to get us some underpinnings of why no works. One of the reasons why no as an answer works is what we found from our own experience is no matter how fatigued somebody is, somebody can say no and clear their mind. Every one of you listening to me right now, we all have the same problem. We suffer from decision fatigue. No matter who you are, you have capacity. So X number of decisions in a given day, you start running out of gas at some point in time. It's between the decisions that you've made. The number of clicks, every click is a decision. Your circadian rhythm, what you've had to eat, what a good night's sleep you had the night before, doesn't matter. You've all got so much gas in a tank. We see over and over and over again. And people on my staff are, especially my assistants are told, never ask Chris a how or what question after 1 o' clock in the afternoon. Because if you say, what do you want to do? What do you want me to do? How do you want me to handle this? After one, my reaction because I'm fatigued is going to be, I don't know, stop bothering me, go away, don't bother me again. Which there's a couple of. You do not want to trigger that sort of response from somebody because then my last interaction with you was you annoyed me. And the last impression is a lasting impression. So it also begins to put you on a slippery slope, if you're working for me, of a downward spiral where I don't think you're that smart because all you did was annoy me. Now, all they, they've all been taught, and I explicitly say this, never ask me a question ever after one o' clock in the afternoon where I can't say no. Because if you say, do you want me to do this? I'll say, no, do this, this, this and this. And I will, in fact ask, answer. The question that they want to ask was, how do you want me to do it? But something about saying no triggers my ability to think through steps. First time I ran across this Jack WELCH Book signing LA, I'm standing in line of 200 people. They're doing everything they can to minimize the amount of time that you spend with a book signer for a whole variety of reasons, not the least of which I'm at a book signing a couple years ago. There are 300 people online. The people orchestrating the book signing walk up to me and they go, like, from the moment somebody walks up to you to the moment they move on, you've got 30 seconds. Otherwise we're going to be here for six hours. We don't have that much time. We got to get everybody through this line. 30 seconds per person. We're going to ask them their name before they walk up to you. We'll write it on a piece of paper. They will hand you a book with their name. It's going to take you 30 seconds for you to look them in the eye. Sign to Bob. Nice seeing you. Good luck, Chris. And they're going to move on. 30 seconds. And doing the same thing with Jack Welch, because I got to move everybody through the line. Plus, they don't want me pitching Jack Welch. They don't want me asking him over to the house, they don't want me asking them over to dinner because my wife makes a great meatloaf. All that's going to happen, they're going to want pictures. So I know I get seven seconds. When I walk up to Jack Welch, I want to pitch him on coming to speak at the negotiation course I'm teaching at usc. I ain't got time to lay this out. And he doesn't have time to listen. And it's late in the day. I walk up to him and I say, is it a ridiculous idea for you to come and speak at the negotiation course I teach at usc. And he looked at me in the eye and he started to squint. And then he looked up into the universe and he got this hideous scowl on his face and he just froze. And my first thought was, has killed Jack Welch. He got so mad because he looks furious that he had a stroke and he died and he's getting ready to fall over. So when he initially doesn't die, I'm relieved. But now he looks furious. I mean, furious. I think he's going to start screaming, scaredy scurry. Get this guy out of here. I don't know what he's going to do. He finally unfreezes. He looks at me and he says, this is my personal assistant's name. This is special Twitter account we have set up to communicate with her. I will call her and tell her who you are. I think we're going to be in Los Angeles in the fall. If we are, we'll come in and speak at your class. Reach out to my assistant. I'll let her know what's going on. Decision fatigue. He said no. And he thought through all the next step steps and he laid them out for me. Now, is it a ridiculous idea and are you against the next two going back and forth with Robert Herjavec over him sending some people to one of our courses? I had lunch with Herjavec. Generous dude, sweetheart of a guy, completely generous. He paid for lunch. It's my favorite kind of lunch. On top of that, I was at a steak restaurant, so it was even better. He paid 90 minutes and he paid. Great guy. I look at him and I say, we got one of our in person sessions coming up in New York. Can I give you a ticket? He looks back at me and says, how many can we buy? One more indicator of a generous, decent human being. We're going back and forth on the tickets. My son, who runs my company, he doesn't care that it's Robert Herjavec. He's mad because we're going to sell out and he wants to sell the ticket and he's hoping Herjavec doesn't take it so he can sell it. He's on the east coast, we're on the west coast in la. Herjavec's offices in la. I was living just up the street at the time. My son calls me at 4:30 in the afternoon, 7:30 in New York. He says, you get Herjvik on the phone and get a commitment for the tickets before the business day starts tomorrow. Or I'm selling these ticket and we're going to sell out because we're on the verge of selling out now and you're holding up the whole circus. And I can't wait to start of the business day tomorrow because the business day starts three hours later in LA and by the time we get up in la, New York's going to lunch. We're going to be out of luck. So I get need a decision from herjavec now at 5:03 in the afternoon I sent him a two line email. Is it a ridiculous idea for you to commit to three tickets for our course now? Second line. Are you against paying for them before the business day starts tomorrow? That's a 503 email. Again, decision fatigue. Five o' clock in the afternoon. When was the last time you tried to close somebody with a hard decision after 3 o' clock in the afternoon alone? After 5 the email response from herjave it comes back at 5:04. No, we're willing to commit to three tickets right now. No, it's not a problem. My assistant will be within in touch with you within the hour and will pay for the tickets. Tickets are paid for at 5:23. I've got all the emails, timestamped, our favorite negotiation, one liners and why. All right, number four, have you given up on what's the context? This is context driven. I see a lot of people trying to manipulate me who've learned this and they'll send me in an opening email. Have you given up on doing business with us? Well now I have because you just tried to manipulate me with one of my tools. Now I don't mind if you use my tools with me, but if you want to use them against me, I smell it really quickly. So any of you that want to try have you given up on as an opening line? It's going to sound harsh. It's out of context. You deserve to have that door slammed in your face. On the other hand, it is the most effective restarter for people who are ghosting you.

Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video and I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out and you if, if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link below in the description or you can wait till the end of this video or you can Simply go to joe'sfreebook.com and you can get a copy there.

It's almost a 1,000% guarantee of a response in many cases from three to five minutes. The person receiving it, seeing it, I'm not kidding you, when you send that one line text or one line email, sit there and wait because the response may come screaming back at you. It will restart the conversation, literally. I know of two or three instances and probably 10,000 when it didn't. One instance when the answer was yes. Now, context. Your system is perfectly designed to give you the outcome that you have achieved. If they're ghosting you, they're not responding, you're part of the problem. Which means they've gone dark on you for one of two reasons. Number one, you're not listening to them. It's a larger subset of communication with them with you is doing them no good. The first problem is probably that you're not listening, you're pitching, and they get tired of giving you the counterfeit yes or the maybes and they just can't take it from you anymore and they just stop responding because you're not listening to them. Number two, they've lost all influence on your side. Again, communication with you is doing them no good. If communication with you was doing them any good, they would still be communicating. What does that mean? Is your takeaway when you send have you given up on. And they respond five minutes later. If you go back to the same type of communication that you were using that led up to that point, you've just blown your one shot reset. I was coaching an ex girlfriend probably about five or six years ago. She says, hey, this guy, you know, we're pitching him on this investment, he's not returning our texts anymore. And I said, perfect, shoot him a text saying, have you given up on making this investment? He's going to get back to you right away. She did. He got back to her right away. She went back into the same pitch that drove him away in the first place and she never heard from him again. If you send this, you have to rethink how you got into this in the first place, because your communication system is perfectly designed to give you the outcome that you achieved. You cannot go back to communicating with them the way you were communicating before. Chances are you were pitching and you weren't listening. You've got to go into listening and using one of our skills, principally summary, to try to get back on track. There was another point I was going to make on that, but it'll come back to me. All right, we're going into 5 and 6. Actually, Howard has a question. Go ahead. No, no, you gave me an alternative to that, which, which is you must have a legitimate Reason for. He's saying, I don't know. Can. Can. Can anybody. Howard says, you must have a legitimate reason for. We'll get it. We'll get into that in a minute. But here's the one that I wanted to get into. We're coaching. We're coaching a guy in a negotiation with Coca Cola, selling them a healthcare program. He says they gotta get. We gotta. We have an agreement, but they haven't signed a contract. Gotta get the contract signed by the end of the calendar year, or this is all gonna go down to tubes. And the guy I'm working with has heard this. So we say, perfect. You send. Send the email, send a text. Have you given up on getting the contract signed by the end of the calendar year? So we get a response every time. Silence. This guy got back to us and he said, you said, this worked. We don't know what's going on. I said, no, we do know what's going on. The answer is yes. And it's really hard for people to say yes, especially this one. That's where you get silence. So here's, you know, going from certainty, uncertainty to certainty, going with Dan Sullivan. Before, you didn't know if they've given up. Now you know, whether you like it or not, you have a solid answer. They have given up. You have to recalibrate all of your communication now to try to salvage this. And here's what's going on. I guarantee you that your counterpart has lost all influence on his side of the table. Coca Cola and the guy we're coaching says, yeah, but if he doesn't sign this, it's going to hurt him. And I say, you know what? That's not good enough. Here's what this guy's looking at. He's trying to make a decision whether to get his hand cut off, which is losing your deal, or getting shot in the head, which is what he's faced with. I promise you, this guy's fighting for his life. Here's how you get him out of it. You send him another email saying, like, look, all this business nonsense, I can't take it anymore. Let's go out. Let's get a steak and a scotch. You know, we'll have a couple of drinks, we'll have a few laughs. I promise you, we won't talk business. He said, if you can get him out of the office into a social environment and you don't ask him a single business question, if you get him out of there and get him laughing, he. He'll tell you what's going on, you won't have to ask. Sends an email, they make an appointment to have dinner together. They have dinner. My buddy is not pressing business at all. A few drinks in, this guy begins to explain to him how he's fighting for his life in Coca Cola. He's worried about losing his job. They've moved him, somebody else has got the contract now. And he offers to tell him who it is and connect with. So if you ask that no oriented question and you get a yes, you have to read what you're learning. You might not like the answer, but you're actually smarter, having gone from uncertainty to certainty. All right? Moving down the line, letting out know a little at a time to encourage collaboration. Read the book. You know that How Am I Supposed to do that? Is a story of how the book opens. And a lot of people have picked that up as a way to bargain. Like somebody says, one guy got back to me at lawn service. Guy said he wanted X number of dollars to do all the landscaping in his house. And he just looked at him, said, how am I supposed to do that? And a landscaper immediately cut the price significantly. And a lot of people learn, how am I supposed to do that? It's a great way to get people to bargain against themselves. What it really is is a polite way to start indicating to people that the answer is no. Friend of mine, Ned Coletti, was a GM of the Dodgers. Those of you that are baseball fans probably know who Ned is. Great guy. And Ned and I were talking about this one time a few years ago, and Ned said he liked to let out no a little at a time. What does that mean? Nobody should get blindsided with no, people should be given gently indicators that there are problems. If you got problems with what they're proposing, if you can't do it or you won't do it or it's a bad idea to do it. No is an answer, but it's really about your fourth response and letting out no a little at a time. Now, how am I supposed to do that? A how question is principally designed to create implementation. If you don't want to do something because it's unimplementable, you say to somebody, how am I supposed to do that? Like, all right, I'll do it. Give me some implementation based on my constraints. Every now and then somebody says, well, what if they tell me how to do it? Well, you just push them to their limit without making them angry. Because when somebody turns around and gives you implementation as a negotiator, in many cases, your job is to find out where the boundaries are. And maybe one time in 10, somebody will turn around and say, this is how you do it. Well, perfect. You've just learned a lot. You've been given implementation that they think is reasonable. Plus you push them as far as you can on that issue, which in many cases is your job as a negotiator. The other thing it is, again, my son Brandon, he said, how am I supposed to do that? Is forced empathy. You don't ask the how question so much as to get an answer. As you get. You ask a question in order to make them think what Danny Kahneman would call triggering slow thinking. If you look at somebody and say, how am I supposed to do that? And you say it deferentially. You don't say like, how am I supposed to do that? Where your tone of voice says, I think you're stupid. You say it deferentially. You make them stop and look at you and see you as a human being, at least potentially as a collaboration partner who's looking to collaborate but just needs some help. So it's forcing them to empathize with you, which is one of the things that's a good thing to do in your negotiations. So it's forced empathy. Number six, your offer is very generous. I'm afraid it just doesn't work for me. That hits a number of awesome psychological buttons. Positive attributes are reinforced by the recognition of them. If someone's being stingy with you to their. In their brain, they're being generous. That's what empathy is about. What is it to them, not to you? You need more generosity at somebody. When they've given you a stingy offer. You start off by saying, you've been very generous. It makes them want to be even more generous. And the story they're telling themselves in their head is that they're being generous anyway. You want to encourage more of it. It has a tendency to turn that dial up by saying, you're being very generous. And to say, I'm afraid it just doesn't work for me, I'm afraid, is an important part of that, as of that statement, it just doesn't work for me. The beauty of that is that it takes away external criteria. One of the things that I think Bob Cialdini talks about a lot, or he may even speak of, because I think we're going to see him tomorrow. Some people say, well, in negotiations, go to external criteria. Go to an external set of criteria that you can both agree on. Well, look what if the market price is X and you don't have the money? The external criteria is a market price. Does that mean you got to pay the market price if you don't have the budget or the funds? It's a stupid idea. So saying it just doesn't work for me. Takes away external criteria as a way to take you hostage. We have never had anybody say reported back in any response. When someone said, that just doesn't work for me, somebody fired back, say, yes, it does. You made a lot of money last year. No, it doesn't work for me. I've never had that fired back at anybody. What typically happens, one of the students in Georgetown was doing this in a negotiation in his day job in a business. He and his partner sat down, some people across the table, they came in with a low ball offer. And he looked them in the eye and said, you know, you guys, offer is very generous. It just doesn't work for us. He said the people on the other side of the table looked at each other and looked back at him and said, you're right, it is low, and gave him a higher offer. How often does that happen? How often does it have to happen? All right, number seven, you call a black swan group on the phone and you get my son on the phone and you say to him, how are you today? And he's going to say back to you, it sounds like it got a place you want to start. And you were immediately going to get into the conversation. Now, of the number of people that asked you, how are you? How many of them actually wanted to know what is how are you really? How are you? Is a temperature check where someone's trying to get a bead on what mood you're in to find out whether or not they can lay out what they call to talk to you about in the first place. You've just gotten around all of that, dancing back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and got right to the heart of what they had on their mind anyway, which is what they went through in their head before they dialed the phone and called you. And you just put time back in your day. And in their day now, the only time Brandon's ever gotten any pushback on this, he said one time, one guy did say, okay, I'd love to get into that, but really, how are you? The guy wanted to know he wasn't mad that he tried to get right into it right away. And my son was like, fine. And then they had the social conversation this guy wanted to have because then it was about serving the person on the other side of the phone. And that guy who's a minority, wanted to have that how are you? Conversation, which, if it enhances the moments in the interaction, is cool. But at least two out of three times, they really don't care how you are. My back hurts, my legs hurt, I get varicose veins. They don't want to hear that. What they really want to know is, are you in a mindset where they can talk to you? So how are you? Is really a probe on the other side's part to find out if they can talk to you about what's on their agenda. And when you say, sounds like you've got a place you want to start, bang, you just hack that and you move forward. All right. Responses to questions number eight and nine. You answer a question at your peril. Everybody knows the question behind a question is much more important. So why is answering a question at your peril? Well, number one, people usually don't. Are. Don't have the ability to ask a good question. Like, when I ask a question, I'm pretty good at it because I listen and I actually want an answer. But most people, they ask you a question, and you answer the question, they start talking about something like, good God, I had no idea that's what you were talking about. If I'd have known that before I answered, I'd have given you a completely different answer. What makes you ask again? What makes you ask? What makes you ask? Upward inflection. Genuine curiosity. Inquisitive. You got to find out what's driving them. I'm in a presentation a couple years ago, while I'm still doing security stuff, insurance company thinking about getting into K and R. Insurance. Kidnapping, ransom. There's insurance for it. There's insurance for everything. They say, have you kept your government security clearance? And I have intentionally not. And what I think for brilliant reasons. I think the answer to that of no is so startling that people are going to ask me, follow, why not? What's going on? Have you kept your government security clearance? No. Conversation then goes in another direction. We don't get back to this topic in the entire presentation. I never get the opportunity to come up with my brilliant explanation why I don't have the government security clearance. It never comes up, and we don't get the contract. To this day, I don't know why they asked. What makes you ask might have changed. It seems like you have a good reason for asking that same thing. You're not being disrespectful. By digging into the motivation behind somebody's questions. Finally, number 10. Seems like you have a good reason for not doing that. When people are failing to perform.

And.

You want them to open up, this is what you've got to say. Seems like you have a good reason for not performing. Seems like you have a good reason for not meeting the deadline. Collaboration is both people waiting in and being. You know, there's a difference between being assertive and being aggressive. I need you to assert your best interests. Otherwise, you're relying on me to read your mind about what's best for you. So for everybody out there, you've got to be assertive. You don't have to be an asshole when you do it. You know, the trick is to be assertive without being a jerk. Now, cooperation is sometimes a little more passive, and I want you to be collaborative. I want you to wade in. I don't want you to leave it to my mind reading to know what's best for you. And sometimes if we lean too far in the direction of cooperation, we find ourselves in a resentful position, and that's not good long term. So I want all of you to step up and politely let people know what you need, because otherwise you're relying on them to read your mind, and that decreases your percentage chances of success.

This is one of my favorite things that I've observed as I'm getting to know you, is the. You're a wordsmith, as I love the distinctions in words, and that makes a big difference. I think people have linked assertive and aggressive as the same thing. Especially people who are not likely to be assertive, that they kind of miscommunicate or misinterpret it, that they need to be aggressive when they're really. What they're trying to be is assertive. You can be assertive politely, like you just said, that's kind of a. That's a great thing.

Really. I agree with you completely. One of the most assertive people on earth, somebody I'm a big fan of Oprah Winfrey. You don't think of her as being aggressive. You know, I've talked about her enough that I've had people close to her detail to me some very specific conversations she had with people where she was extremely assertive. You know, if you were to boil down her message to one sentence, it would be, it's my way or the highway. But she says it in such a supportive and nurturing and loving fashion that people go, okay, yeah.

When you say it in a way that it's like, it's okay that if that's not your way, that's fine with me in a way.

Right?

Yeah. You know what? That's it exactly. She always says, if it's not your way, it's fine with me. And no matter what, I will always love and support you.

Yes.

You know what?

That's interesting because I have met Oprah twice, briefly. The second time, but the first time I spent about 15 minutes talking with her at Maryville Resort over about 20 years ago, and she was at the resort for the first time. And my friend used to be the spa director there. And lo and behold, like, Oprah kind of walks around the corner and. And she looked so tired that I couldn't even bring it to myself. I wanted to ask her if she'd do an interview because even 25 years ago is when I first started doing interviews, but she looked so tired that I didn't bring up a single thing about business or anything. I was just talking to her about the equine experience, using horses as this therapeutic thing that they were doing at this spa. And people were coming up to her and she just had to just dismiss them. But you're right, Chris, the way she did it was, I mean, extremely assertive. But also the tone of her voice, the way she did it. But it would, I mean, there was no doubt that, you know, like, don't.

Talk to me and that sort of thing. So it's.

Yeah, I think that. So, I mean, to master something. Chris, from like Mastering the Skill of Negotiation here, you obviously have a book. We wanted to have you come on because certainly what you can teach people can change the trajectory of their life and the results that they get and how they interact, not just in business, but in all areas in life. What are your thoughts on mastery? I mean, you even have a masterclass. You have trainings. I mean, what does it take for someone to get to that level?

It's repetition, small stakes practice for high stakes results. Be willing to make mistakes and then learn from your mistakes. Now, that seems obvious, but first of all, most people over the age of 25 don't want to make mistakes. You know, you're horrified, you're embarrassed. You know, you find mistakes embarrassing. And so that's the first problem. I mean, that's a real problem. And then the second thing is then learning from the mistakes. You know, it's practice makes perfect, but perfect practice makes perfect. Learn from your mistakes and be willing to get better. Like we, you know, we get internally, we got sort of a game that we play. I'm getting sweet upgrades in hotels for free. It's a little bit of a contest. My son Brandon, prides himself on always getting a better room in a hotel than me, and I'm paying the bills, but, you know, he taught us how he does it. And the last time I was in a hotel and I happened to be in Dallas for a football game just a couple of weeks ago, I did it badly, and I got the sweet upgrade. And afterwards, as I was going through it in my mind, I was like, ah, I made a mistake. I mean, you know, I got to do this better. But it was a learning, you know, it was a repeat experience for me. Practice and, you know, I was willing to make a mistake and then. And relearn, get back into practice. Because negotiation is a perishable skill. It's not riding a bike. If you're bragging about a negotiation that you did a long time ago, then you're out of practice because you should have a recent victory or not quite a victory that you could talk about and get better from. So it takes practice.

So, Chris, where is negotiation not utilized in life?

Yeah, you know, I don't know where it's. Where it's not utilized. I mean, when are you not trying to get smarter? When are you not trying to gather information? When are you not trying to have influence in a good way? You know, again, this was with this collaborative thing that I referred to earlier about, I mean, using your powers for good and not evil. If you collaborate, if you want to hurt people, it's going to catch up with you. But if I'm only information gathering, maybe, and I don't want to have influence on the outcome, maybe that's it. But negotiation is involved in everything. Negotiation. One of my favorite stories is negotiation involved when you order at Starbucks. It's in everything. And the reason why it's involved at Starbucks, which most people say it's not. I had a guy tell me that a Starbucks employee told him that he gave decaf to people that were mean to him.

Sometimes you're in negotiation, you don't even know you're negotiating.

Exactly. When you don't know you're in.

That's right.

Yeah, exactly. You're the recipient of what happens when you're an asshole to people.

Right, exactly.

So going back to collaboration, so let's frame it this way. So you've been in some pretty serious life or death situations. I mean, the top international FBI hostage negotiator was one of your roles that you've Done in your pretty expansive life, how does someone who's threatening to blow someone's head off wanting money or whatever, that they're looking for freedom from their crimes, how do you view that as a collaboration?

Yeah, well, it sounds like a cliche, but what are their actions or their threats? In a larger view, what are they designed to get? Whether or not you're a terrorist or you're a CEO or you're a paperboy, it doesn't matter. We're all after a few of the same things. You know, we want a better tomorrow. You know, we want to live, we want to flourish, we want to prosper no matter what. You know, there's a higher purpose. You know. You know, bank robber says they need to call in 60 seconds or she dies, which is one of our favorite exercises. A guy wants to live, you know, a terrorist who is a demand, I'll kill this person. If we don't have this political demand, they have greater aspirations. I was training hostage negotiations in the United Arab Emirates a little over 10 years ago. They brought me in to sit down with the sheikh that was in charge. Brilliant guy, American educated, interesting dude. I mean, an interesting dude. And they told me before I sat down with the sheikh, if they had any, you know, if they had al Qaeda come in. The sheikh wanted to kill him. You know, he said, understand, the shake is not here for you to save terrorist lives. The sheikh is here for you to save lives of innocent people in the Emirates. The sheikh says to me, what are you going to teach my guys to tell? And I said to him, I want your guys to get on the phone and say to a terrorist, what you're doing is a great thing. And the sheikh's mouth fell open. And I said, and when they do, they're gonna have them the same way I've got you right now. You can't wait to hear what I'm gonna say next. Because there's a larger purpose to the action. So, you know, business person in. Somebody's demanding a price reduction. They're under pressure. You don't talk about. Don't talk about the price reduction. Say, sounds like you're under a lot of pressure here. Sounds like you're really up against. You're really up against. It sounds like you're backed into a corner. Get out of reacting to what they said and think about, in a bigger picture, what are they really after? And it's pretty much always the same thing. Because all human beings are hardwired the same.

Yeah.

So what's the most stressful negotiation you've ever been in. And how did you, how did you deal with it?

Talking to my sister earlier today. You know, the ones we all struggle with, the closer somebody is to us, the harder it is for us because it just becomes harder and harder to get out of our own way. Anytime that if I can step back at all, then I can get myself under control. And usually the way I step back is I'll vary my tone of voice. There's a couple different ways to step back. To get yourself out of a reactive judgmental mode, get yourself out of, you know, an angry mode. You know, they say give a speech when you're angry, It'll be the greatest speech you ever regret. You know, when your buttons are getting punched, you're actually dumber. And you're also simultaneously more self righteous. So it's not emotions that are bad, it's negative emotions. And anytime you can, you can take a step back in any way, take a deep breath. I mean, you know, we're seeing all this stuff from traditional thought that now is being backed up with scientific data. Taking a deep breath is a way to step back. You know, that book Breathe is out there. I was, I was thinking actually earlier today, you know, because I got a little heated up in conversation with my sister and. But then I happened, you know, it was time for me to. I took cold shower. I take cold showers for health reasons. I instantly, my mental state changed, cool off, literally physically, you know, so I've, you know, I varied quite a bit from your original question. What was the most stressful negotiation you were in? Anytime that I don't have a sounding board. If I'm in it by myself and I don't have somebody on my side as a sounding board, then I'm not in as good a position. I've had some kidnappings that were ugly. You're not going to bat a thousand. You're just not. Anybody wants to give you negotiation strategy that says works every time they're lying to you. I told somebody in a conversation recently, hostage negotiators had a 93% success rate, which is an enviable success rate for any sales or business person. 93% success. But that meant we shot the bad guy 7% of the time. So engage in skills that increase your batting averages and don't expect yourself to be perfect.

Okay, got it.

So what is your process for like fleshing out a situation and then determining.

The best approach to take?

Because you have to size things up and sometimes you have to size them up relatively Quickly. So how do you speak to that?

All right, so the first thing is, Colin Powell said a long time ago, never let your ego get so attached to the position that if the position collapses, your ego goes with it. What does that have to do with what you just asked me? What it has to do with what you just asked me is when you size things up initially, understand that you're going to get in more data and your assessment of situation is going to change. So, yes, initially, I'm going to size the other side up for collaboration. I'm going to size them up for whether or not they're L for half. Everybody knows what that is. I live by those phrases every day. I'm going to try to figure out if they're L for half. Are they easy, lucrative and fun? Are they hard and annoying, lame and frustrating? And then I'm going to be willing to adapt that as I go on. I'm going to use a couple of negotiation skills that are the diagnostic tools, mirrors and labels. I'm going to repeat something that they just said to get them to go on. I'm going to label what they just said. It sounds like this is important to you. Anything to give me more data as we're going through to back up whether or not they're L for half. Conversely, what am I to them? Am I the favorite of the fool? If you don't know who the fool in the game is, it's probably you. In point of fact, and I bet the ranch on this, 20% of everybody's opportunities, 20% of business opportunities are fake opportunities. We actually think that the number's higher than that. 20% of the time the person is coming to you for your good or your service. They're looking for you to be a competing bid only. They're looking for you to flesh out their due diligence. They're looking for you to be the rabbit to drive the price down on the other side. 20% of the time. Why do I think the numbers 20 and it's actually much higher? There's a book out there called the Challenger Sale. They ran a survey. They asked business people, how often do you actually lie to a vendor? You have no intention of doing business with them, but you're acting like you do because you need a competing bid. You're only doing due diligence. Executives responded about 20% of the time. Now, did they exaggerate or did they minimize? Because basically what they asked the executives was, how long do you lie to someone? How often do you lie to someone? About whether or not you're going to do business with them. There's no way they exaggerated. They had to have minimized. So part of my assessment at the very beginning is, am I the favorite of the fool? If I'm the fool in the game, I'm going to be Oprah. I'm going to be nice and say, go away, but I'm going to say, go away, Gabby.

And by the way, I've heard awesome things about you. I just have not had a chance to really talk to you that much. I really have.

They're all rumors. Joe, welcome back. And I'm absolutely thrilled to be a new member and wanted to also thank Michael for hosting me at Optimize. It's an amazing experience. I was fascinated by you talking about arguing the other side, which is a classic debate technique, as we know. And one of the things that I thought of is you're good friends with Chris Voss, who uses that technique in a way, in his negotiations. And I was wondering if there was a way to have a conversation with Chris. Chris to see how he would handle what's going on in the Ukraine to try to resolve that. Because, in effect, Putin is holding this whole world hostage right now, and Chris is an expert, as most of you know, in hostage negotiations. So I think that would be a wonderful input from him that we could all use in trying to make sense about all this craziness that's going on.

Yeah. You know, that's interesting. Let me see. I'll ask Eunice and Gina to make a note.

Let me run that by Chris and see if he'd be open to doing a. Like a genius mornings or a discussion just on. Like, ask him anything about that, because I would be curious to see how he would respond to a question like that. You know, how do you actually.

Yeah.

And, you know, the other thing, too, Joe, is we tend to ascribe when we talk about genius. Someone is a genius. One genius in one field. We tend to ascribe them to be geniuses in the other field, and that's just not accurate. And, you know, we want to field a team that represents the values that we have, who have, you know, Chris's amazing genius in negotiations.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, there's a. There's a post that.

Because I sit there, I just looked at the comments. Amber said, well, my heart breaks for.

People in both Ukraine and Russia.

I'm not sure if what we're hearing is actually true. The people on either side didn't ask for war.

Yeah, that's the Most unfortunate thing about.

All of this, what I, you know, what my, my understanding and experience with the media is what is shown, you know, the real story and the real motivation and what's really going on. That's, you know, it's a complex issue that's way beyond what we have time or ability to even, you know, I could ever properly address at the same time. And everyone has, you know, different perspectives. There was a, what was that movie called about the. Is, oh boy, the Israeli army years ago. Shen Yen. Is that how they pronounce it? Shem Bet, the Israeli military. And there's that line in there, that one, you know, one man's freedom fighter is another person's terrorist. And the unfortunate thing about.

All of.

This is the sheer, and I don't just say this for Ukraine and Russia, just the sheer amount of innocent people's lives that get destroyed and decimated as a result of so much of this complexity. It's very difficult.

I mean, I'm going to actually ask.

Jordan Peterson some of these questions because.

You know, Jordan Peterson, what I like.

About Jordan, he, you know, he has a thing where he's like, some questions don't have an easy answer, some questions you can't answer immediately, some take hours, some take days, some take weeks, some questions require years and some require lifetimes to properly answer the question. And this is one of those things. It's just difficult and it's, it's incredibly sad that so many people suffer in so many ways. And yeah, I guess the best way that I don't have an answer for that. I mean, I will say to your original question of asking Chris, I'd be curious to see how quick Chris would respond to this. One thing that I try to often do every day is think, okay, what can I do? What should I do?

And knowing that we can all do.

A lot in different ways.

You know, the whole star thrower story.

Where the, the, there's different versions of this, but the, a man's walking along the, you know, the, the beach and sees a figure down by the beach and as he gets closer, he notices it's a little kid that is, you know, bending over and picking up starfish and throwing the starfish into the ocean. And the old man goes up to the, to the kid and he goes, son, what are you doing? And the son's like, well, I'm throwing, throwing the starfish in the ocean because if I don't do that, they're going to drown. And the old man's like, well, son, there's starfish stone for miles. What sort of difference do you think.

You'Re going to make?

And the little boy picks up a starfish, throws it in the ocean and says it made a difference for that one. And so I, you know, I think we can all make a difference, even if it's in little ways, even if it's just telling someone, you know, any form of encouragement. So. But these are very complex issues. These are very complex issues. But to go to your thing, I will ask Chris. I'll see what he says, Gabby. And maybe we can have him as a guest and we can do a.

Q and A with him.

Excellent. Thank you, Joe.

Absolutely.

Thank you. And I'll just, I'll just answer questions.

Until my team tells me to shut up.

Jonathan.

I think Natalia might have been before me. If you want to.

Oh, yeah, I'm sorry, Natalia, please go ahead and then we'll come.

Thank you, Jonathan.

Thank you, Jonathan.

Hi, Jo. Amazing. I really have a lot of notes. We're taking notes and learning from me. Thanks for that. And particularly I felt excited about the idea about building small towns, especially in this period. I think many young people can really have this idea and it's something that's really cool. Right. And other people maybe done their everything in their lives. I've seen everything being everywhere and stuff. And this is something that can really be interested for those two. So I really feel excited about that. Thanks for sharing. And another thing I'd like to, I'm Russian based in Italy and I do want to say that a lot of Russian people going through a very hard time right now, not compared to Ukrainians, of course, but those two very close countries always been from the very old age, you know. And yes. And you know what, what is propaganda is saying it's not true because it also depends on how you form the question. Like people who actually they're saying that people who are pro war, like looking for war or something like that, they actually have been asked, are you agree with the special operation in Ukra? So it really depends how you present the question. That's what I want to say, that a lot of people who are going right now through a lot of shame, a lot of pain, a lot of families in Russia were formed by Russian and Ukrainians. The same in Ukraine. So I think both nations are suffering greatly right now. Yeah. Just wanted to share that and thanks.

No, thank you.

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, there's going to be.

So much generational trauma as a result of not only this war, but the pandemic. And everything like that. I mean, you know, when I sit and look at just the work I do in addiction, I mean, we have the greatest addiction crisis in human history right now. And even, Even World War II, what many people don't know, there's a book called Blitz. The entire, you know, German army was. Almost the entire German army was being given, I believe they called it perpetine. But Nazi Germany invented crystal meth in 1932, I believe. And when you see Hitler doing these intense speeches, he was high as a kite because Hitler was being given drugs every day. And then the entire German army was being given perpetine. And they would fight harder, more aggressively, eat less, sleep less. And when you have long term exposure to crystal meth as an example, it removes empathy. And then they were able to do concentration camps and horrendous things. And what many people probably don't know about a lot of the armies is how many of them are being fed drugs. And it's. So much of this has to do with, with addiction. There's a book called wars of Force that gives us meaning. And it is a fascinating. But I mean, I could look at the entire lens of what's going on in the world through the lens of addiction, and that's a much deeper conversation. But it is, yeah, it's extremely, sometimes very difficult to look, you know, what's going on in the world, but also having the empathy that you can, to know what you can and cannot do. And I have a friend who has been texting me all morning. He's in Ukraine right now and they're, they're trying to get orphans out of the country. And, you know, he sent me the last text. They've safely got 268 orphans near site. Jesus. I mean, so buckle up, people. The world's in a shitty place in some places. And also, you know, don't, don't get yourself drowning in the misery either, because it requires leadership, it requires responsibility, it requires, you know, you loving and caring for yourself. You know, I don't quote the Bible that much. There's a verse where you can't fix the world with broken hands. So in the middle of it all, we have to make sure our hands are not broken so we can do whatever part we can do. And I'm trying to say everything I'm saying not because I don't know, you know, I don't know what's the. Everyone has a side, everyone has a perspective. And even when people are doing terrible, difficult things in their mind, most of the time they think they're right. And that's what's complex. It's as complex.

I would think that most people would agree that when it comes to negotiation that all of us could have a little bit of improvement. Now, even if you are a seasoned negotiator, there are some times that you believe that you can maybe have said something a little different. So this talk is for you if you want to increase your negotiation skill sets, but also take it to the next level of how do you have deep connection in every one of your conversations. So through this three step approach, I'm going to be teaching you that. So before we get into this, how do we define high stake environments? Well, it's anything that is a negotiation, a high stake conversation or presentation. And it's also an area where we have to connect on a deeper level because we're going through maybe a challenge or a struggle. And it can also affect your time, your money, and even how you perceive your reality. So even your values. So even if you aren't in the situation where you might be fundraising hundreds of millions of dollars in your life, you're in difficult situations and conversations every single day. How many people in here are parents? Awesome. So having those deep connection conversations with your loved ones and being able to have that effect that you want, what about you? Your spouse or intimate relationships, how many people are in those? Right. So it's slowing down, being able to get the most out of those situations so that you can get the results you're looking for. Team members and business partners, all of us, I'm assuming, even if we have that remote team member, we want to be able to connect with them, get to the heart of the matter. And then we have clients and customers and patients. How many people are connected to them? Yes. Only three or four. Come on. And then we have also team members and we have investors, board members and advisors. And so looking at how we navigate those situations, and so you're probably looking at me and saying, how did she get into negotiations and sales? Where did that start? Well, it started at the kitchen table. My parents were in real estate and real estate sales for over 40 years. So growing up in a very highly entrepreneurial atmosphere, I saw the highs and I saw the lows and everything in between. And so in the early 90s, I was a teenager. And as you know, real estate, we're going through it right now, has some cycles and we're in a deep recession. And it was a time where I got to wake up to a time in my life where I Realized that if I was going to have something in my life, I had to own my results, I had to take ownership, I had to take responsibility and I had to make a decision. So you all in your seats right now and at home you might be in a spot where today is that decision to make that you want to take your relationships to the next level so that you can live the life that you want to live. And so that was a very impactful experience that led me to be in sales and to understand it on all different aspects and doing extremely well at a young age, making a lot of money and helping a lot of people and how to take things to the next level.

Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video and I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out and if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link below in the description or you can wait till the end of this video or you can Simply go to joesfreebook.com and you can get a copy there.

So, so where we got to start here is negotiation strategy. And so in negotiation strategy we have distributive and we have integrative. Distributive is that tug of war that you have that maybe that one time negotiation where you don't know if you're going to see that person again. And so it's a lot of bargaining. It's, you know, cards are close to your chest and so you're trying to get that result but you might not see that person again. What I really focus on is integrative, which integrative is looking at long term relationships that we all benefit, that we all win. But don't worry, Chris Voss. I'm not going to say win, win, right? So it's looking at how do we get to that deeper connection. So this is an ongoing relationship that everyone benefits. So as you know, in negotiation there's a technical side which I could go into, which would be a two to five day intensive where we could go into things like pre framing, reframing, framing agreement frames, anchoring to sales cycles, all these different things. What I'm going to do today is really focus on the artistic side because that's something that you have a lot of control over. And it's really looking at how we have this technical and artistic side combined which really makes it so that we are able to be authentic and have your true essence come out. So the first concept that we're going to go over is to breathe. And I love this group because we have Jason in the back right here who's done such an amazing job. I love being in groups and environments where there's so much pre framing and people are ready to go with breathing. And what I'm going to try to do is take that breathing, how do we bring it into our high stake environments, how do we get that artistic side with our breathing and start connecting those dots into those high stake situations. So here's some, just some basic takeaways is you want to elongate your breath, especially the exhale, because that stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system which is really where we want to be in our rest and digest. So rest and digest. So we want to slow down and elongate that breath, especially the exhale. Because at the end of the day our breath is the entry point to increase our life force energy and really have that essence that we're looking for. And as you've heard, I'm sure from Jason too, but a lot of different cultures talk about this. In ancient wisdom we have he, mana, prana, chi. And so it's understanding that there is this thing called energy. And how does that we have this access point of our breath and using that and to be able to slow down. And the big thing that you're looking for is to have that alignment, embodiment and congruency. Our breath is connected to so many things. It's connected to how we look at our values, which creates our beliefs and attitudes, which creates a our thoughts, emotions, actions, behavior and our words and how we have clarity and how we execute. So slowing down and being able to embody your breath really gives you that range of what we want to look at. So something too looking at your breath, a part of my background experience, probably thinking like, okay, she's teaching us negotiation, sales. Why is she slowing down? Talking about meditation and breathing. And so something that happened to me over 14 years ago as I was a corporate sales executive and I was also a competitive triathlete. I was in two consecutive accidents where I had to rebuild my whole entire body and relearn how to walk. And it was a crazy time and literally I didn't know what to do. It was one of those things. And it's something you could relate to too. When you're in a situation where the difficult things become simple, that you're not, you just don't know how to navigate. You've had these strategies your whole life and you don't know what to do. And so I wanted to give, contribute to Some teachers that I met along the way that taught me this information. Narazi, Magnolia. He was my first teacher coming out of these accidents where I could barely walk. And if it wasn't for this man, I probably wouldn't be here today. And he was a huge believer in Tai Chi and Qigong and yoga. And he even got me to live in an ashram in India where I had a lot of healing and going through my breath work. I also studied with Harada Roshi for over 10 years doing silent meditation retreats in Japan and all over. And he taught me just the connection of our breath and how that is connected on all different levels and what we can do with it. And then I also wanted to highlight just one more person was our two people, Kathryn Vitz, Morris and Sol. And I did voice work for three years because I had major PTSD after my accidents. And so what I wanted to do is just go over some basic things you want to do with your breath. So you want to speak at the top of your inhale. So when you're in high stake environments, you want to be able to be at the top of your inhale so that you have that range with your exhale. And you can be able to do a lot of different things with your voice. So it's something to practice. You want to also do a 360 degree breath. Most people do 180 degree breath. And so you want to use your whole entire body, your lungs are in your back. And so to be able to do that and you want to do four to seven cycles of breath cycles a minute. So something to focus on there as well. Most people do 14 to 17 breath cycles per minute. And this is all to increase in being in the present moment. So breathing, the next thing we're going to go over, the number two thing is listening. So remember we have a three step approach, so listening and that is really looking at the levels of listening and breaking that down. And so the levels of listening, the first level is level zero, which is really no listening at all. It's no listening speaking only. How many people have been that experience? When you're in a conversation, you're not really even in that conversation. So it's something to slow down and look at. What level are you at? Level one is looking at subjective listening. This is all about the listener and their agenda. And this is where 80 to 90% of people are. And this is where they're taking their reality through through their filter and reacting to it. Level two is looking at listening and not being in the present moment, when you start slowing down and looking at the how and coming out of this to be present. A lot of times we're thinking about the past or we're thinking about the future or something that is on our mind or what we're going to say. And so it's being able to slow down five minutes a day and just being present with our breath and remember elongating, especially the exhale. Level three is objective active listening. So being able to objective active listen is really about problem solving. It's looking at the facts versus the story. How can we get to the solution? What is actually going on here? We can move it forward, which is great in work environments. Level four is looking at intuitive listening. And this is where you're taking all five of your senses. So that's visual, auditory, kinesthetic, augustatory and you're able to see what's happening in between the lines. Because most of the time we're in these surface structures and, and we want to get to the deeper structures. So you want to slow down and be able to actually ask questions and look at how this all connected. And so within listening we have the levels. And then it's also looking at active listening and looking at things like it seems it sounds what I've heard and then asking. Is that right? And with that asking questions. So these are some of my favorite questions just to go through this quickly and to wrap up questions you want to ask when you're in negotiations because it's really about the other person and listening. So what does success look like? What are you looking for specifically? Tell me the next step in the process. Tell me how you make decisions. These are all really great questions to ask. So here's a summary of that. Take a picture. And so it's about practicing intuitive listening and elongating your breath in low stakes situations. So you can do in high stakes situations. And the last area I want to talk about is connection because that really, when you're able to breathe, listen, we're all looking to have deep connection. And so deep connection starts with us being able to slow down and connecting to ourselves first. So how do we do that? How do we connect to ourselves first? And how do we look at kindness, empathy and compassion for ourselves first and then we're able to do for others. Because most of the things that happen that happen is that when in most cases anything we do to ourselves, we do to others. So it's being able to slow down and be able to connect with ourselves first. Because at the end of the day. We're meaning making machines because that's what we do on unconscious levels. We're making meaning out of our experiences and events. And I'm always curious what other people are meaning and making out of their events. And so understanding meaning is how do we bring the heart and the mind together? And when we're talking to people and connecting, connecting with them, that we might be talking about something and agree on something, but it might not, it might mean something different. So how do we slow down and actually ask what do you mean by what you're saying? Or what do you mean by this? So you can connect on those deeper structures I was talking about and so you can move the conversation forward and actually get to the heart of the matter of what's most important. And then just really quickly, I think people know about verbal and nonverbal communication because it's such a huge component of connection. But you have physiology. We already talked about breathing and posture and being able to do conscious gesturing. You have tonality. And what I want you to take away from this is tonality. The most two important things is volume and speed. So having that range, especially when you elongate the breath, you're able to do that. And then you have your words, which is only 7%. Everyone's always surprised by this. And I know some people have seen this before. And so it's looking at predicates, which is your verbs, key words, common experiences and content chunks. And so just to look at this all together, which is always interesting to me, that 93% of communication is so non verbal and so slow down and really connect to all those different aspects of how we're communicating. And to wrap up, it's looking at intonation patterns. So especially when you're in big deals and you're negotiating or you're a difficult conversation with your spouse or your loved ones when you're getting to certain important parts, especially when you're closing, for instance, you really want to be aware of your pitch. So where are you do naturally go upwards sometimes when it's a little awkward or uncomfortable? Or do you go flat or neutral or a command? So for instance, I'm working with a security company right now that is pretty high up. They're doing a lot for Ukraine and they work a lot with the Dodge military. And so one of my CEOs and clients, we have to work on his intonation pattern of doing a command language because military is very command like language at the end of a sentence. So these are just some things to think About. So what you can do is in your next high stakes environment or negotiation or high stakes conversation, you can breathe better, listen better, and connect better. And what I imagine for all of you is to slow down. And in that next conversation or negotiation that maybe the last time it didn't go the best way.

It did.

But for some reason, this time, with having that right approach and thinking about these three things, everything comes into place.

There's something I learned about Joe. Can I share this?

Okay, so I don't know what you're.

Going to say, but yeah, so.

So I was always amazed. I try to be a good learner. So now observe someone who's really good at what they do. I want to understand why. Right. So one of the things I loved about Joe, firstly, super generous, super kind. You know, when I met Joe, we were at an event in Vegas. And no, this was like we'd known each other for about a year, but not too well. And Joe was organizing a trip to Necker Island. And I really wanted to go on that trip, but I didn't have the money. I didn't have 40 grand. And Joe was gracious enough to say, okay, we don't have any spots on the island, but if you're willing to put up 12 grand, you can sleep on the beach and still participate in all the activities. And I put down that 12 grand. I slept on a boat on the beach. But I gained so much inspiration from that network and that trip. As I observed Joe, I noticed that his foul language and his way of, like, poking and making fun of you actually makes you feel so at ease with him. Right? And it was such. And I remember being in that room with you when Paula Abdul came and joined us. And even the way he, like, pokes fun, poked fun at Paula Abdul, it made her more relaxed because everyone else is sucking up to her. Everyone else, like, puts her on a pedestal. And Joe, just this, this, this weird humor you have helps you connect with people in such a beautiful way.

No, thank you.

It actually does because I think people really, you know, there's this air of fakeness and phoniness and, and, you know, life is hard.

Life is difficult.

And so whenever you can use humor to break the ice and to just make it, to be more chummy with people, it. It just simply works.

Okay, now, now can I share the second something I learned from Joe? Have you noticed how Joe uses his phone? Okay. He will immediately connect you with someone with a voice note or a video. Anyone seen that? Okay, now, you guys don't know this, but I learned that from Joe, and I now run my entire company that way. So I set foot in the office sometimes, maybe once every five months. Everything is done. I run my entire company. I don't use email, I don't use. Use slack. I learned this strategy from Joe and I've evolved it. And I run my Entire company on WhatsApp using this strategy. And it's hyper efficient and I got all my executives doing it and it buys us time. What I didn't realize, and I don't think even Joe knew he was doing this, but this is a format of communication called OODA looping. Has anyone heard of OODA looping? Okay, so raise your hand if you have, because this is. This is crazy. Guys, I'm so excited to share it with you. May I?

Yeah.

Okay. I'm not.

Great.

So.

So I learned about OODA looping at Singularity University. We were part of the XPRIZE Foundation. We went there and they were, they had various professors, lecturers, teaching us all of these different concepts for productivity. And when the guy started talking about OODA looping, all the most brilliant people in the room stood up and listened. Larry Page was there, Ray Kurzweil, the VP of technology of Google. They were all on their phones, you know, barely paying attention. When the topic got to OODA looping, everyone was alert. I literally have a picture like, of OODA loop on the screen with Larry Page and Ray Kurzweil there. So what was special about this OODA looping? OODA is a concept introduced to management theory by a US army colonel called John Boyd. So he was an Air Force colonel. And, and John Boyd noticed something. The Air Force pilots that were shooting down the most enemy planes were also the top guns that were wasting the more bullets. Now this sounds counterintuitive, right? Because if you're a top gun, we think you're going to be all Tom Cruise like and accurate. But it turns out the guys who are more accurate were worse fighter pilots. The guys who were wasting more battles, bullets were better fighter pilots. Because in a war, what do you care about more downed enemy planes or saving bullets? So John Boyd explained it this way. A good fighter pilot observes. That's the first O in uda. Observes the landscape Orients. Okay? That's where the enemy is. Decides an act. Ooda. Observe Orient. Decide act. Observe Orient. Decide act. Fighter pilots that were more precise, who had a higher, higher accuracy rate, had slower. Observe Orient. The side act loops. Fighter pilots that were wasting bullets were doing it very rapidly. Observe Orient. The Side act, observe, orient the side act. They were doing it very rapidly, wasting so many bullets, but in the end downing more more enemy jets. Now the same thing applies to business. The faster you can make a decision, the faster you get into the the the enemies decision loop and you out innovate the enemy. So this is what we did. First thing I did is I took Joe's concept of these fast whatsapps and I told my team, listen, you guys can use email. I want everyone moving to Slack because Slack is faster than email. Use email only if you need to send a memo or something, you know, something long out or something legal. And I said, and by the way, I'm not even going to be in the Slack group. I don't want to micromanage. If you need me for anything, you want WhatsApp me. And I respond to my team with an audio note or a voice note really rapidly. For example, two people came up to me earlier for lunch and they said, hey Vishen, I'd love to know how do we get on mindvalley? This is the product I do. I open up my WhatsApp, I get them to record a one minute video and it's going straight to five people in my team who are responsible for author selection. They'll follow up. My job is done. I don't schedule meetings. OODA prevents meetings. So I one of my business partners is John Butcher. I actually met John at this event in 2017. Okay, so that was. By the way, this is a great case study for Genius Network.

It was before then.

Before then, yeah. But we became business partners when we had a discussion here in 2017 and we've gone on to do 50 million in sales together with Mindvalley Lifebook. John and I used to schedule a one hour call every week. And he lives in Hawaii, I live in Malaysia. These calls were brutal. It was so hard to get the time zone selected. So I said, John, you know what if rather than we do these calls, whenever you have an idea you need to convey to me, leave me a WhatsApp message and I'll do the same. Now I timed it. We went from one hour scheduled meetings and sometimes that was 10pm my time to 17 minutes a week of WhatsApp notes. So we basically saved 43 minutes. But we were also making faster decisions. We didn't have to wait for our weekly Thursday meeting. We killed the meeting. We just make fast decisions on WhatsApp. That's OODA now. So the first key thing is this. Screw meetings. Like I rarely am in meetings Anymore. I can travel around the world. I don't have to set foot in the office because all decisions are made in rapid, fast cycles on WhatsApp. And so my schedule completely cleaned up. This gave me. This transformed my life, guys. It gave me more time for exercise, more time for health, more time with my kids, more time to read, more time to study, more time to travel. I now live a completely life than I did when I was a CEO in an office with 200 people because of OODA. But there's another really interesting thing that you got to do. You got to accept this act when you're 90% right. Okay, so you guys know split testing, right? Copywriting, split testing. You're testing two headlines to get to 90% statistical significance. You can probably do it in five days, depending on your traffic, to get to 99%. You want to be really, really, really sure. It could take you five months. Good copywriters don't wait five months. If they know there's a 90% chance you're right, boom, they act on it. We do the same thing for business. So why did I need. Why do I need a long meeting to decide if I'm going to publish an author? Because I want to be 99% right. But when I toss that away and I accept the fact that 1 in 10 authors I sign are going to be a mistake, 1 in 10 new app features I choose to build is going to be a mistake. I'm able to make decisions faster. And because. And then I use the ooda moment and WhatsApp. And this allows us to innovate like crazy. This is why our app is in the Apple Store. This is why our. We just launched an app for Microsoft integrated with Microsoft Team and Microsoft AI. It's one of 50 apps in the world that Microsoft selected. We're able to get all of these wins because we are making decisions crazy, epically fast, because we are not looking at to be anything less than 90% sure. So this liberates my teams. No reason for, like, long, crazy meetings. I asked my team, you want to do this? Are you 90% sure? They say, great, do it. And so when you embrace these principles, what happens is you create a really different type of organization. Rapid decision making, rapid movement. No unnecessary meetings. And for the founder, if you guys are the founder, freedom. And that's such a refreshing thing. So Joe inspired that when I observed how he was using his phone to do rapid introductions.

No, thank you.

Thank you.

That is great.

And you know, the reason that I do everything quickly is because for good or bad, I navigate a tremendous amount of relationships. So the method was I had to figure out a more effective way to do it because there'd be no, you know, the Dunbar's law or whatever that is, where you can have like 150, you know, key relationships. I mean, I manage hundreds of relationships. I mean, in my iPhone, there's probably close to 8,000 people that I. Wow, that's impressive. And I can remember most of them.

Yeah.

As I get older, though, I'm starting to forget stuff now, which is really, really weird.

But that could be.

You know, there's a point where I think you hit the limit where you're like, all right. The brain's like, you know, but that's awesome. So can I ask you about culture?

Yeah, go ahead.

So built. So you have the technology. We've seen the effectiveness of that. How do you get your team so engaged? What is your method of creating this?

So Peter Drucker famously said, culture eats strategy for breakfast. Right. What I've come to understand is that I over invested in culture. Culture is less important than I thought. And in fact, a lot of my mistakes was over investing in culture. Let me give you an example. We built an office in Malaysia that made ink magazine Top 10 Most Beautiful Offices in the world. This office is a sight to behold. If you check out my Instagram, I just did a video of it. But if you go to the office, office, right now it's empty. Why? Because everyone wants to work from home. Nobody gives a about having one of the most beautiful offices in the world.

And I've been to the office. It's freaking cool.

Yeah. Here's, here's what we do know and, and we learned this the hard way. I wished I'd known this sooner. Working from home is a huge competitive advantage. But you, but you got to combine some of these things together, right? So, so on LinkedIn, my COO just sent me this data. Only 10% of the job offers on LinkedIn right now allow working from home. 46% of job applicants on LinkedIn are looking for work from home. So we decided to shift. I was so attached to my office. I mean, imagine having one of the most beautiful offices in the world and then being able to say, you know, fuck it, we're just going to be away work from home company. We did that and it, it accelerated the company like crazy. Here's why. Because now we are one of those 10% of companies that offer work from home that we are getting almost half of all of LinkedIn's. Applicants. So now we're able to hire all of these genius people who for some reason or the other do not want to show up in the office. So I have, I have this killer team. For example, example, my chief product officer just came back from speaking to the Pope about AI. He just won five awards at ces. He has five magazines in five inventions in Time magazine. He has a song coming out this month with Snoop Dogg and Idris Alba. He's my chief product officer. Why? Because he has that freedom, right? He can work from home. And I also give him freedom to work on all of these other projects. So I find smart people and I'm like, okay, be part of our team. You choose your own working hours. I trust you. You can have side gigs. I just want you to really crush it at Mind Valley and I'll give you recognition. And, and that's how I get many incredible, many incredible people on my team. I have a young girl from Iraq who does videography on my team. On the side, she's making award winning documentaries, but she still wants to be part of a team. So work from home has been incredible. More important than any BS cultural thing, you know, such as education perks. People just want their freedom. So Daniel Pink, okay, he wrote several books on really elevating employees. And he said, you want to make your employees really love your company, give them morning autonomy. So most of us are like, lives are so shackled up by our work. You got to be up at 9, cut through traffic, skip your gym, skip time with your kids, so you have to show up at 9:45 for your damn like early morning huddle. We don't do things like that. We give our employees morning autonomy. I tell them we're going to move our huddle to 2.30pm no rush, take your time in the morning. Need to see your need to make a good breakfast for your kid. No worries. Need to work out in the gym, need to meditate, go do that. And people told me I was mad, but that actually creates this incredible amount of loyalty. And so freedom is one of the core values that we give our employees. And the side effect is I have crazy freedom right now. Like I am probably one of the most free CEOs of a company our size that I know because I'm not bound to any shackles. I choose my own hours as my employees do. I get to work from home, home as my employees do. But we make, but we innovate like crazy. We get incredible results, whether it's our advertising team or our Technology team because of OODA looping and because of these other principles. So the ASSD model, that's, that's unique to us. The ASSD model also ensures that we're not outlandishly growing our team and we're being really focused on revenue per employee.

Yeah.

And I think what's key about what you're saying too, because I think a lot of people could hear this and be like, yes, that's exactly what we're going to do. No more meetings, everyone. Time in the morning. But you have to have really talented people that can build this stuff and make it all work. And if you don't, that would be very difficult because I've watched Elon Musk's interviews about working, you know, and he's like, you know, someone's got to build shit. You can't build a Tesla from home, you know.

Right.

That sort of thing. And so I, you know, I've really looked at the pros and cons in different ways to observe.

I mean, it depends on the business, right?

Yeah.

So if you're manufacturing, obviously you have a factory floor, people have to be there. But if you're doing stuff that's digital, it's not necessarily true. And this idea that employees are less. Less productive when they're working from home, I don't know how true that is. We've not seen it.

Yeah, yeah.

No. Oh, you know what's funny to mention Elon.

So we were. You.

We were at one Elon Musk.

We were at SpaceX.

Yeah, we went to SpaceX. I've been there twice. Two meetings with Elon Musk and just small group of people. And you had asked him, what is the biggest contributor to your success? And Elon is kind of an awkward dude. You know, he's got way better speaking than back. Back then. And he said, I can tolerate. I think he's talking.

He said, I have a high tolerance for pain. Entrepreneurship can be. It's like crawling into an abyss of darkness and chewing glass.

Yeah.

He said, I can tolerate more pain than almost anyone I know, which is quite fascinating and.

Right. And I mean, God bless Elon. I think, I think Elon's a great gift to the world. I don't want that. I just. I want to enjoy life. So I. I have different rules as to how I do it.

No, no, totally, totally. This is great. All right. So for the time we have left available with all the courses, all the training, all the personal development, everything. Mindvalley right now and for Genius Network members, I talked with him backstage about this. If you are a genius network member, you're going to give you'll send me access. Figure out how we we get it to everyone. A free membership in Mindvalley. So what is that?

What does that.

Okay, so a membership on the. So Mindvalley has many different divisions to it, but a membership on our app. This is the app that Apple has installed as a demo app in all new iPhone 16s and Apple stores. So it gives you access to over 100 of the world's most incredible programs in every aspect of making you a better human. For example, where's Vern Harnish? Right? So Vern has a program on scaling your business to a million. This is for beginner entrepreneurs. That program is on there. At the same time we have a program by Mickey Agrawal, the award winning entrepreneur on how to scale to 100 million. At the same time we have Jim Kwik's memory program and speed reading program, the best speed reading program in the world. We have all of the these different unique programs from a variety of world class authors. And these programs are based on microlearning. So even Silver Method, the program is on mindvalley and in 20 minutes a day you can basically advance just about any aspect of your life. The newest program I think is of particular interest to many people in this room. It's by John Lee, he's an incredible digital marketer and it's really about how to use social media for marketing, advertising and branding. Incredible program and it just launched and so all of these programs are available for one subscription fee. We like Netflix for improving your life. You also get access to 1,000 hypnotherapies and meditations. These are really high quality audios that can help you boost your confidence, relieve stress, help you sleep better. All of that all in one really beautiful app.

What do you charge?

What's your pricing?

So we charge 500 if you come to the website. We sell a lot through long form VSLs on YouTube. So we had last year we had the number one and the number three best performing long form ad on YouTube globally. And on those ads you're buying it for between 300 to 400. Gotcha.

What do you think is going to happen with courses and education? How's it going to be, I mean changed?

What areas do you.

You really see it changing dramatically.

So I think bulk subscriptions like this are going to be how people start consuming content. I don't think courses are going to disappear, but what's going to happen is that these courses are Going to get a lot more intelligent, right? So for example, you might be taking Vern's course, but you might also be able to chat with an AI avatar of Vern and get the answers that you need. You might also be able to jump into a community and discuss with other students, post questions, receive, receive responses. They might be. One thing that we're going to be, that we're going to be getting to is every person who comes in our app will understand who you want to be, understand what your motivations are, and have a custom AI coach. And you can choose. Maybe you want Dave Asprey's voice or you want my voice or you want Marissa Pierce voice. Have an AI coach guiding you day by day with the right class, the right lesson to help you get to your learning goal.

Okay, and so what. One last thing. What is the smartest doable thing that we've not talked about that you can share that would help everyone here make the most money?

Okay, the smartest doable thing. I think what I shared on OODA is probably what I've seen make the biggest impact in businesses. But the smartest doable thing is like find out when Alex Mendocin is going to pee. No, find one person, right? One person who is a marketer, who is an expert in any type of marketing that you are interested in. Go really deep in their work. So many people come to me going, hey, how? Like how are you guys doing DSLs? How are you guys doing webinars? You're crushing it. And I tell them it's non stop focus. Like before, we had the number one and the number three long form ad on YouTube. We released 42 different ads that failed and it took us one year of learning to get there. The reason my advertising strategies work and demolish the competition is because we stick to one thing and we make mistakes, but we go really deep till we master it. And most people won't go that deep.

Yeah.

Okay. I hope you found that video awesome and useful. So if you want to get a free copy of my book, I want you to click here. And if you want to watch some more videos that will be useful and awesome, click here. Go ahead, you're over here. Do it now.

Come on.

Thank you.

Watch them.